(CNN) -- A poor workman often blames his tools, and every four years the official World Cup football seems to provide the perfect excuse for poor play.

As balls go, the ones created for soccer's showpiece tournament have often fallen a bit flat.

At the 2002 tournament the Fevernova was deemed too light; four years later the Teamgeist was judged too heavy -- and then came the unloved Jabulani...

Compared to a "beach ball" by Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas, called "dreadful" by England counterpart David James and described as "very complicated" by Argentina's star striker Lionel Messi -- who had actually been enlisted to help promote the ball -- the Jabulani left the 2010 tournament with a deflated reputation.

So it's over to the Brazuca -- a colloquial term used to describe pride in the Brazilian way of life -- to pump up pride for German manufacturer Adidas, which has been official ball supplier for the world's biggest sporting event since 1970.

Like those that have gone before it, the Brazuca is debuting innovative technology, as South America hosts the World Cup for the first time since 1978.

It is formed from six identical panels -- two fewer than South Africa's Jabulani -- which are glued together at a certain level of heat and pressure.

But the Brazuca has another important design difference which could kick the problems of its predecessors into touch.

"As soon as I got hold of the ball I could see how different it was from the previous two," says Dr. Simon Choppin, a research fellow at the Center for Sports Engineering Research at Britain's Sheffield Hallam University.

The first batch of Brazucas were dropped off to all 32 national federations competing in the World Cup in time for Christmas last year.

In May, the 4,000 official match balls to be used arrived in Brazil and the training balls were, in turn, handed over to each federation when they arrived at their warmup camps.

With such meticulous planning, the players have had plenty of time to get used to the Brazuca, but will armchair football fans be able to tell one ball from another?

The Brazuca will be more like the footballs that the players are used to in their domestic leaguesDr Simon Choppin

"If a piece of sports equipment is doing its job, you won't notice it," says Choppin, who has spent much of his career analyzing the behavior of footballs and tennis racquets.

"Previously when these balls wobbled in the air they made the job hard for goalkeepers, so there were more goals, and that's quite good for the person at home watching.

"Adidas has remedied that behavior so I'm predicting the Brazuca is not going to do anything completely crazy or unexpected, so maybe we won't notice as much."

If the Brazuca does have any hidden idiosyncrasies, then the World Cup's most gifted players could still turn them to their advantage.

"When the football at one of the previous World Cups started behaving strangely and wobbling in a certain way Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo learned how to kick the ball in that way repeatedly," Choppin explains..

"So if a piece of equipment starts behaving differently it potentially gives the player an advantage.

"The best players won't complain about it -- they'll exploit it and use it to their advantage.

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"Once he had learned to control the ball, Ronaldo saw it was a big advantage and he started scoring lots of free kicks."

But for those without the rare ability to bend the ball like Ronaldo and Messi, could a perfect football be created?

"Maybe as technology progresses, we can do away with seams altogether and start with a blank canvas," Choppin predicts.

"Manufacturers will be able to choose ball behavior themselves by adding indented roughness.

"I imagine a future where you can make a football that's marble smooth and then you press in the roughness and seams like adding dimples to a golf ball."

Even if the perfect football was conceived and created, there may never be such a thing as a universal ball -- at least not in today's competitive, commercial market.

The raison d'etre for the Teamgeist, the Jubulani and the Brazuca is to showcase Adidas technology and create demand for an exciting new product in front of a global audience.

World football's governing body FIFA is expecting 3.2 billion people to watch some portion of the month-long tournament.

As long as Adidas, Nike, Mitre, Umbro and other rival companies are competing to sell sports equipment, then a football with universal match appeal will remain as elusive as the gold World Cup trophy itself.

As for the Brazuca, no matter how consistently it performs in Brazil, its fate on future football fields has already been decided.

After the tournament the match balls rolled out in Brazil will become another Adidas marketing tool used in giveaways, exhibitions and retails.

The march of technology and the demand of the dollar means in many ways the Brazuca has already been consigned to history before the World Cup kicks off.